Lean Spleen And The Injections

... Great name for a band, that.

I'm here just to let you know that I'm in a good mood. The weekend was good - a great balance of doing things with people - like bowling, AA, visiting friends - countered with some quality time by myself feeling not-sick. You treasure those days.

As I've previously mentioned, I have been instructed to give myself three injections to help boost my white blood cell count, so my treatments can continue every 2 weeks, as opposed to being delayed. I was told to stick myself with one on Friday, Saturday and Sunday,but when it came down to it, I just couldn't do it myself. On Friday I didn't even bother trying. The needle itself it only really about 2 cm's long, and it needs to be stabbed in under some pinched stomach fat before the the 5mm of gooey liquid is pumped in with the syringe. Thankfully, an ex-girlfriend jumped at the opportunity to stab me in the gut with a sharp object and she did the tricky bit for me in my office. It doesn't hurt at all, but it's the action of stabbing myself that I just can't do. I suddenly have new respect for captured Japanese soldiers in WWII .

In a rather optimistic moment of insanity, I thought I'd try myself on Saturday. It was ridiculous. I stabbed the needle in about 2mm and then instantly pulled it out again, leaving a drawing pin hole in my tummy. Like a school boy that had pricked himself with a needle, my bottom lip dropped and I said 'ouch'. That was my one and only attempt to do it. I'm such a big girl when it comes to this sort of thing. I failed to find anyone on Saturday to do the job, so it didn't get done (I got moaned at by my Key Worker this morning about that). but I managed to find volunteers on Sunday and this morning, so my three injections are now done. Hooray.

Speaking to my Key Worker, it's looking like they are pushing for this PICC line to be put in soon. I think I'm going to be called in tomorrow or Wednesday to have the procedure explained to me by the nurse. It's fair to say that I'm not looking forward to this at all but it has to be better than the chemo experience I had last time - and yes, my arm is still hurting. That's 11 days of vein pain so far ...

I was having a little feel of myself in bed last night - stop sniggering at the back - and I've concluded that my spleen is shrinking. This is good news. It doesn't feel as 'up high' as it was before ... it used to stick out a bit more ... I think it's definitely a more lean spleen. Hopefully I'm not imagining it.

Right ho, not a very exciting blog today. Not even a funny one either. But I thought I'd just drop by to say that I'm well, I've had a good weekend, I'm actually quite happy, looking quite healthy and feeling grateful for my sick-free days.

It won't last.